Me, Myself, and I
by Pokeshadow55
Summary: She would know that red hair, the specific shade of teal in her eyes, the familiar black shirts and lithe frame. It's impossible to fully forget who you used to be after all, isn't it? (A two-part fic written for Phanniemay. Rated T to be safe.)


**A/N: This fricking monster is 4,637 words with the fic alone, and I'm so glad I wrote it. It's one of my favorite ideas. A fic I came up with that I wrote for the Phanniemay segment AU. I'm a smidge late, but I don't think it's too bad.**

 **And if you expect me to say anything, let me just say this; _if the shoe fits._**

 **This fic is intended as a two-parter. Both can be read alone, but I feel like they'll fit best with each other.**

 **This is the longest fic I've written to date. I'm very proud of myself for doing it.**

 **I do certainly hope you guys enjoy this fic as much as I enjoyed writing it! I admittedly hit a lot of walls in writing this, and the later half of the fic was something I'd come up with after I realized I was going at the fic _all wrong._ I still have those drafts somewhere but they're awful. I don't know how well I did with the characters in this story, because I've never written either of them, so feedback would be wonderful.**

 **Also, a relevant note: I headcanon Danny is about 3 years younger than Jazz, since her own age was never stated in canon.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom or any of the characters, just the concept for the AU.**

* * *

 **Jazz: Age 11**

* * *

 _"Pff, a psychologist? Really?"_

 _"_ _I didn't realize they let ugly sticks take such big important jobs like that"_

 _"_ _You dumb spazz, as if you'd ever get into those schools anyway."_

 _"_ _Why don't you just go over there and be a dumb laughingstock like your parents?"_

 _"_ _Hahahahahahahahaha!"_

Jazz sniffed, pulling her feet up onto the stone park bench and wrapping her arms around her knees. Sadness, hurt, and the words of her peers echoed through her mind, her heart sinking further when she remembered the jibes. Though she'd managed to give them an earful and push her feelings aside earlier, now that she was on her own they returned stronger than even before. She shut her eyes to the light streaming from the sky and the tears that threatened to spill out.

 _"_ _What's so bad about wanting to be a psychologist when I grow up?"_

"Jazz?"

The young familiar voice pulled the eleven year-old from her thoughts for just a moment as she looked up and met the bright blue eyes, cocked sideways in confusion and concern.

"Oh, hi Danny!" Jazz said with as much cheer as she could muster, setting her feet on the ground and giving him a smile. "What are you doing over here?"

Danny just pouted at her, his face scrunching adorably before he walked up and jumped onto the bench next to her. For a minute the two sat in silence, staring at the empty gravel path and motionless trees before Danny finally spoke up.

"Those kids are really dumb."

Jazz startled at the seeming non sequitur, spluttering in shock and horror at him. "D-Danny, you can't just go around calling people dumb, that's mean! What are you even talking about?"

"I'm talking about those guys who called you and mom and dad dumb earlier."

Danny was frowning at his sneakers as he spoke, but Jazz was frozen staring at her brother. _Wait, he heard all of that?_

"They don't know what they're talking about," He continued, looking up at her with conviction all over his face. "I don't know about you, but I think you're the smartest person in school. Smart people like you shouldn't think about the things dumb people say, because they're dumb for a reason so you should just ignore them."

The factual way he said this warmed her heart and Jazz reached over to ruffle his hair with a smile, laughing at his indignant "hey!". Then she pulled him into a hug, spirits lifted.

"Thanks, little brother."

Danny just smiled and returned her hug, his mission accomplished. Jazz just wasn't Jazz when she was sad.

* * *

 **Jazz: Age 19**

* * *

"Yeah, alright. Take care, Danny!"

 _"_ _I will, Jazz. Talk to you later."_

Jazz waited until she heard him hang up the phone before she shut her cell, placing it on her desk with a sigh. She caught a look at her reflection in the lid of a Fenton Thermos, a "just-in-case" gift from her parents and Danny.

Absently, Jazz ran her fingers over the bags beneath her eyes and the slight wrinkles starting to show on her face; the result of all-nighters and the piles of work she did for her bachelors degree in psychology. Her other hand drifted to a small box she'd bought earlier, thinking of the off-hand remark a classmate of hers had made.

 _"_ _Nobody wants some wrinkly old hag for a therapist, would they? That's how some dreams fail, when you don't look the part they expect you to."_

She wouldn't have given it any second thought if it weren't for the fact she'd seen it for herself before. Jazz gripped the anti-aging cream a little tighter.

There wasn't wrong with keeping skin healthy; a little bit of makeup and cream couldn't hurt her, right?

* * *

 **Jazz: Age 21**

* * *

Jazz was too mentally exhausted to feel anything in particular towards her classmates, or even towards the ceremony that was going on around her, beyond a dull sense of happiness and relief. She'd enjoyed the course, sure, but the past months had been so draining on her, and by now she mostly wanted to see this over with.

Still, when they called out "Jasmine Fenton" and she went up, when she looked out into the crowd and saw her brother and mother cheering and her father filming and taking pictures, Jazz smiled for the first time in what felt like weeks to her.

She felt pride and joy in the happiness of her family and in the way she'd so far managed to prove so many people _wrong_ about what she was going to do in her life.

* * *

 **Jazz: Age 21**

* * *

Barely half a year had passed, just a few days after she'd gone back to school for her Psy. D when the Disasteroid came and threatened to destroy the Earth.

She recalled the fear in her heart when the Fenton jet first crashed into those mountains, the elation shared with the others in the building when Danny soared from the portal, hundreds of ghosts in tow, the relief when she held her brother in her arms once the danger had passed.

Although she wasn't really sure about his choice to reveal his identity, it was still his own choice, and Jazz trusted him.

* * *

 **Jazz: Age 26**

* * *

The service for him was grand, but the funeral itself was small, limited to close friends and family members. Jazz, who had earned her doctorate just a year and a half ago, had requested a month off from work. They gave her a month and a half.

Grief, after all, was a terrible and destructive thing. She needed this time.

Valerie was there, and despite having reconciled with Danny in the past she was cursing every possible power in existence, desperately apologizing for things she knew in her heart he'd forgiven her for, even where she never forgave herself. Sam and Tucker stood next to each other, grounding themselves in the wake of their best friend's death, best friend and fiance for Sam. The golden class ring, her name still engraved inside, glistened from its place on her hand. Maddie and Jack, standing not in their usual jumpsuits but in more casual and funeral-worthy clothes, held each other's hands and Jazz's, struggling to keep themselves afloat amidst their emotions. A number of Danny's closest allies stood closer to the edge of the graveyard, giving the six mourners plenty of space.

It had been a battle of the titans; Pariah's sarcophagus was never meant to be opened, and Vlad's actions from years ago had weakened it. Eventually, the Dark King had broken free once more, tearing a hole through the emotions to Amity in search of the child ghost that had defeated him before, Phantom.

Their battle had raged on for hours, Danny buying time and keeping Pariah away from the town and its people as they evacuated by the hundreds. The fight was unlike any other battle he'd ever fought, brutal and unforgiving. There was no mercy to be had, no locking his enemy into the thermos or finding a way to return and seal him into the Ghost Zone; This battle was to the death, and to the death it was.

In the battle his core and body had both taken irreparable damage.

Pariah Dark was dead, but so was Danny.

Maddie and Jack had determined that because of the damage he'd taken to his core, there was no chance of him coming back as a full ghost.

The sorrow at the service was all but tangible and it seemed as though every ghost of the zone had showed up, a final respectful tribute to the one who had freed them from the undead tyrant at such a great cost.

Jazz finally collapsed into the comfort of her parents, the three Fentons mourning for their lost family.

* * *

 **Jazz: Age 26**

* * *

Jazz drifted apart from her parents. It wasn't truly any of their faults, not Maddie's or Jack's or Jazz's, but all of them threw themselves so wholly into their work that it left no space to talk.

For Jazz, this tactic only worked for so long.

It was a passing remark, something she'd heard on her way home from work at the therapy clinic.

 _"_ _I'm personally relieved the half-breed freak died though. Nothing good was gonna come out of a ghost fighting ghosts, obviously, even if it might've been half alive, and I'm just glad it died before something worse happened because of it."_

Jazz saw red.

 _How dare they._

She wasn't entirely sure what it was she'd said to them; she knew it was something personal to them, her words and eyes and mind picking open the little scars they probably hadn't even known they had. Though Jazz regret losing her temper the way she did, she didn't regret the tongue-lashing she'd given them.

* * *

 **Jazz: Age 27**

* * *

The stranger on the street wasn't the last or only person she heard on the street. It seemed to Jazz that now that her ears were aware of the things people could say, she heard so much more than before.

She still used her psychology against them and she still regretted it just a little bit, the way she twisted the little things they took comfort in and were trying to overcome into more demons, how she lead them to doubt their own hearts, but she pushed away and onwards. They deserved it, the way their own words disturbed the memory of the little brother she tried to keep with her.

She flung herself into her work even more than before, eventually opening her own private clinic. That one bottle of cream became five, which became ten and fifteen and twenty and so many more.

 _"_ _No one wants a wrinkly old hag as a therapist!"_

An emotion akin to hate welled up in her at the words of the people on the streets. How dare they, being so ungrateful to the one that had destroyed himself to save all of their lives?

 _They wouldn't hate him like this if he wasn't_ _ **dead.**_

Jazz was spiralling and she knew it, but she couldn't bring herself to care any more than she already did. She told herself helping others would help her, that working was her way of coping. She'd get better eventually.

* * *

 **Jazz: Age 28**

* * *

A couple years after the death of the youngest Fenton, Madeline and Jack Fenton died in their sleep as a result of ectoplasmic radiation and their growing ages. Supposedly, they'd done more experiments in the past few years than they had over the course of twenty and it had lead to their seemingly early but natural deaths.

Jazz had shut down her clinic for the next few weeks as she flew in for the funeral. A decidedly smaller but still grand number of people came to the service for her parents, people chatting and standing around morosely. Jazz swallowed, trying to stop herself from listening in on the pieces of conversation around her, trying to stop herself from remembering how the one who said _"They were good people"_ was also the one who'd once called her parents crackpots on the street, how these people, despite having apologized and admitting flaws still seemed like such hypocrites to her eyes.

After she'd seen their bodies lying in the casket, watched them be buried after all the eulogies were said and done, after a brief hello to the people she once called friends or acquaintances or allies, the last living member of the Fenton family left Amity for good as she returned home to her apartment.

She remembered the aged faces of her parents, so different from when she'd last seen them at Danny's funeral, how old Danny would look when he came home after a long day of ghost hunting, recalled the happier times when they were young with so little worries beyond whether or not dinner would come to life that night. Her heart ached for the times when everything felt so much simpler and happier and _better._

* * *

 **Jazz: Age 29**

* * *

Once more Jazz flung herself into her work, determinedly doing session after session. Her work in therapy and psychology was what kept her going, where the memories of her family would falter ever so slightly and the words on the street still managed to tear into her.

She forced herself to ignore the wide mouthed fools she'd pass, pushing onwards and reminding herself day after day that biting her words back at them would do nothing. It wouldn't stop them from speaking if it didn't do so yesterday or the week before, it wouldn't stop others from taking their place, and what they thought of her family had nothing on what she knew as a fact. What would strangers know? They didn't understand the sleepless nights, the honest work, the way they lived in fear of an attack they couldn't stop or the chance that a bystander would be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Wake up, get ready, makeup, walk to work, sessions, lunch break, more sessions, close the clinic, run errands, walk home, clean up, moisturize, sleep. Day after day she would stand up and move forwards, struggling to keep from tipping off the edge.

She teetered often, and sometimes on the darkest nights she would stand in front of the mirror, tracing the lines of stress she tried so hard to erase and pushing the constant stream of words that resounded in her head away. Thinking of her family and friends never helped on these nights because every time all she would see was their tired faces and weary bones, how they looked just like the middle-class workers and the determined poor she would see in her university days, bringing the words of her peers to the forefront of her mind. She'd thought often about going to another clinic to talk to someone else, but she also knew that what she needed wasn't someone to talk to

Jazz knew she shouldn't have cared, but she did anyway and it was hard. Working was her way of getting better and helping herself through this, and if the way to stay in her line of work was to look young, then she resolved to look as young as she could so long as healthily possible.

* * *

 **Jazz: Age 29**

* * *

In the year 2017, one year after the deaths of the elder Fentons, Jasmine Fenton died in hospital following a car accident on her way home from work. Investigations showed the driver had swerved to avoid another drunk driver and had hit Miss Fenton. Had the vehicle in question hit her head-on, it would be likely Miss Fenton would suffer very different injuries and have spent the rest of her life in coma. As it was Miss Fenton's excellent reflexes, most likely a result from having grown up in Amity Park, prevented this outcome. Several people have been debating whether or not her death was a "good thing", considering the only other outcome involved her remaining in a vegetable-like state. It is unknown whether the driver that struck Miss Fenton or the drunk driver will be charged with involuntary vehicular manslaughter, though the latter has already been charged with drinking and driving.

Nearly five years in the past by this point in time, a confused young ghost opens their eyes for the first time and realizes that they're dead. There is a humming in their chest and a strange urge and desire they don't understand, so they rise from the rocks and leave in search of it.

* * *

It's another three years before the new ghost finds something to look at themselves with, and when they look at their face there are two things they immediately know;

They are female, and they are made of shadows. At least, that's what it looks like to them.

"Well," she said, testing her smooth voice for the first time in her three years as a ghost, "This is unexpected."

They gaze at the reflective surface of the water-like substance for a few more minutes, trying to figure out what the feeling in her core, as she'd learned, was. It intensified as she gazed at herself, but she couldn't fathom the why. By this point, another ghost appeared, growing angry at her being there and tossed her out, muttering something about "Idiot curious specters invading its home". The ghost found herself offended, and she floated off.

She started examining her claws and the rest of her form, troubled. She had a feeling that her appearance had to do with an "obsession", though where the word came from eluded her, though she knew it was true. Nonetheless, it answered a few things, so she flew off once more, hoping to obtain more answers as to her ghostly form.

* * *

She eventually learned more about the things other ghosts saw as "common knowledge"; she learned that most ghosts (but, in fact, not all ghosts) had very prominent and somewhat obvious obsessions, and these obsessions could be fulfilled either in the ghost zone or in the human world. Natural portals ran the risk of stranding a ghost in the human world at a time where their obsession couldn't be satisfied, but the risk was worth the reward because fulfilling one's obsession in the human world worked better and, in some cases, was easier for other ghosts. Powerful emotions influenced ghosts easily, and some ghosts used emotions to complete their own obsessions. No one felt emotion as strongly as humans and human-like ghosts did, which was why so many ghosts would investigate and dive through natural portals. She learned how to start gleaning information about herself and her obsession so that she could live as a proper ghost, and about the different powers being dead seemed to grant her suddenly.

She also learned that the place she'd found the pool had been a ghost's lair, and following that she discovered her own; an ornate door that no other ghost, save her, could open. Taking advantage, she discovered a mirror-filled room and locked herself in.

Two weeks later and donned in an elegant red suit, a young woman nimbly soared from the lair door and went in pursuit of a path to the human world.

* * *

In Creede, Colorado at a little self-sustained mental health clinic, a young redheaded woman named Penelope walked in for her first day on the job.

She worked hard at the clinic for just under a year before moving away to a different city. A few weeks later, two teenagers in the area were found dead by unknown causes. Investigations seemed to indicate suicide, but parents were skeptical due to the obvious mental stability of the two children and the lack of common signs that preceded such a thing. The crime remained a cold case for many years, eventually fading from memory.

* * *

The ghost flew to the first town she saw, fabricated papers in hand. On the tops she'd scrawled the name she had chosen as her human alias: Penelope Spectra. She wasn't sure where she'd gotten the name, but it didn't matter to her.

Invisibly, she floated over the town, searching for a place she'd be able to overshadow and trick the people into hiring her. Spotting a therapy clinic, she smiled. _Perfect._

One overshadowing and a planting of papers later, she was all set to start her new job the next day.

She tried to be a good therapist at first, she really did. Within the first few days however, she only truly managed to bring the spirits of one or two kids up in each session, and each day she went "home" to the apartment she'd tricked the landlord into giving her and eagerly took note of the lack of wrinkles. She wasn't sure why she wanted to stay young, but a gut feeling told her that she'd only get what she wanted by staying young so that was what she would do.

The rate she helped them and de-aged was just far too _slow_ for her, and she quickly found herself frustrated. After one particularly unproductive day, she off-handedly made a remark to someone passing her on the street. The sudden surge of self-depreciative emotion almost caused her to stumble, and she could almost _feel_ herself becoming younger. Penelope rushed home as fast as she could without seeming suspicious, making a beeline for the mirror and grinning when her thoughts were confirmed.

As much as she'd wanted to try doing positive things, she could see why most ghosts would rather go the easy way and make humans upset. She lasted one more day before she changed tactics, carefully using the knowledge she assumed she'd obtained in life to lead her.

She moved before the year was out, relishing the negativity she'd drenched the city in.

* * *

Soon she picked up other aliases, along with some strange blob that called himself Bertrand. He was mostly useful as a secretary, for when she decided to work independently for a time or at a place such as a high school. Penelope didn't like him much, but he seemed just as happy with misery as she did, not to mention he was useful, so he could stay for now.

As time went on she went further along with causing misery, sometimes going in her shadow form and appearing to people individually, sometimes going in her human disguise and depressing crowds. The more she did this, the more she remembered about her life, but she only ever spared a glance at the memories. Who cared? This was her life now, and from what she could tell it was much better than her life as a human.

* * *

There were two kinds of storms in the Ghost Zone: The kind you had the slimmest chances of somehow miraculously surviving, and the kinds that would completely obliterate those who were within a five mile radius of it. One of the unanimous "laws" every ghost unconsciously knew, however, was that anyone who was caught in a storm would likely be never seen again, regardless of its type.

This was, luckily for them, the former.

As dangerous as storms were in the Ghost Zone, they were also extremely spontaneous; they'd returned to find a new portal and place to spread their work when the storm had caught them, and they struggled to keep the lightning and eldritch beasts that roamed the clouds from striking them. Rather, Spectra was shielding herself and Bertrand was tagging along next to her.

Duck, swerve, left, right, dive, another sharp turn left then straight up, panic drove Spectra as she heard the snarls of unholy creatures, felt the rain and spittle on her back, and just before she was blinded by one last flash of lightning she caught a glimpse of a blessed swirling portal, shimmering blue and purple in the odd lighting.

She didn't waste a moment thinking of that. Instead, she dove through without a second thought, the portal sealing behind her and Bertrand instantly.

At a timeless place of gears and towers, a single ghost gazed at numerous screens and outcomes. He frowned, but knew the necessity of the events he had once seen, was seeing, and would be shown.

"All is as it should be."

* * *

Spectra groaned, lifting herself up and frowning at the sunlight that hit her face. Next to her, Bertrand sat up and held head, disoriented.

"Oh man, what hit us?"

"I'm pretty sure it was ten tons of ectoplasm condensed into a storm." Spectra replied, standing up and looking around. The two of them were in an alleyway, dark enough to hide the two ghosts from any prying eyes. Taking advantage, she quickly shifted into her human disguise, grimacing as she felt the faint wrinkles around her eyes. She needed to fix that soon. Bertrand reflexively changed into his usual short human form immediately after her.

Glancing at him for only a moment, she lifted her head and left the alleyway as though she hadn't just appeared out of nowhere from another universe. She scanned the area, searching for something that could give her a clue as to where they were. Instinctively, she knew they were most likely not even in the same human world she'd taken so many jobs in, but the similarities were uncanny and she needed to check a theory. Spotting a gas station she made a beeline for it, Bertrand on her heels.

Surreptitiously she swiped a newspaper, phasing her hand through the machine and examining the date.

 _19XX_

Huffing irritatedly at the unfamiliar date, she scanned the article, pausing when she realized she actually _recognized_ the events detailed.

 _New Prototype Ghost Portal in the works at the Wisconsin University!_

 _Dubbed the "Proto-portal" by its creators Madeline, Jack, and Vladimir, this device is said to be able to "punch through the dimensions" to "further our studies on ectoplasmic life forms", otherwise known as ghosts._

 _People are debating whether or not this strange group of three is truly going to be able to pull off such a feat, but nonetheless we wait with baited breath for the day it comes to fruition._

Spectra couldn't stop the giddy feeling that welled up inside her once she finished reading, a grin breaking out on her face as she realized what this meant.

She wasn't just in a different universe. She was in a different universe that mirrored her own in every way except one.

"Hmmm, how do you think a little half-breed freak is going to react to us, Bertrand?"

Bertrand raised an eyebrow, thought for a moment, then smirked. "We'll destroy them."

Sharkishly, Spectra smiled. "Excellent. Because I think I know a few places we should go sometime in the future."

* * *

Lancer smiled as he shook the new teen counsellor's hand. "Thank you so much for coming in, Penelope. I can already think of a number of students who could quite desperately use your services."

"Oh, it's not a problem at all." Penelope smiled back, "Just send them as soon as their classes are over. I'm excited to meet all the kids I'll be working with."

Mr. Lancer nodded, releasing her hand. "I'll leave you to it. I will bring the first one around after school; his name is Daniel Fenton." Giving her a grateful smile and a nod to Bertrand, he walked out the door, shutting it as he left.

Behind him, a cruel smile made its way onto Spectra's face. Signalling to her lackey, Bertrand grinned and phased through the ground, returning to his blob form as he went. Alone, Spectra took a deep breath, relishing the misery that already saturated the air and eased the wrinkles off her face.

"I do sure hope you'll be happy to see me later then… _little brother."_

* * *

 **A/N: God, the last part? That was my favorite. I got chills when I thought of her just saying that and I knew I just _had_ to incorporate that.**

 **The primary difference between Jazz!Spectra's universe and the Canon Universe that Spectra is now in is that Spectra didn't exist in the J!Spectra universe. "My Brother's Keeper" and "Doctor's Disorders" never happened there. Also, as you can tell, there would be little things; Jazz is generally assumed to never have been bullied in canon, for example.**

 **I regret absolutely nothing other than the possible errors/OOC-ness of the fic. I'm sorry for those two things. However, I loved writing the last part. Mind you, it took me longer to write than I thought and it took up 10 pages (written in dark red ink the colour of blood and Spectra's suit) without being completed in my journal, but I had so much fun just toying with all the possibilities of this fic.**

 **Huh. I guess that nomination the other night was more accurate than I thought it was. Welp, it's one in the morning where I am, time to cross-post this to tumblr and go to sleep. Have a good night, everyone, and I hope you enjoyed! Please leave a review if possible, it would make my day.**

 **Edit: Minor changes and edits concerning some of the phrasing, but nothing super huge or anything.**


End file.
